How do plants and ecosystems adapt to climate change in the tundra?

What is it about?

Plants and animals tend to stick to a biologic schedule, determined by their interaction with the environment. A few examples of such events are the migration of birds as well as the appearance (and disappearance) of leaves and flowers on trees. The timing of these is dictated mainly by temperature. Observing and recording the timing of such events is called phenology. Due to their sensitive nature, specific measurements can be used to determine how climate change has affected plants and animals’ biology. Since the 1990s, as part of the ITEX (The International Tundra Experiment), scientists have been observing changes in the phenology of plants grown in the tundra region—both, under experimental, controlled temperatures, as well as the natural cold temperatures native to the region. A new paper goes through these compiled data, bringing to light new insights while talking about ITEX’s scope and importance.

Featured Image

Photo by Viktoria Spokojna on Unsplash

Photo by Viktoria Spokojna on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Traditionally, phenological observations have been used to aid with farming, but they could have immense scope in other fields as well. The tundra phenology database—the largest collection of phenological events for plants in the tundra—contains 150,434 phenological measurements. These include 278 plant species collected from 28 test sites in Arctic and alpine tundra ecosystems recording the dates for five phenological events: leaf green-up, flowering season, seed maturation, and leaf senescence. These data provide a wealth of information about how plants in the tundra react and adapt to warm environments. Therefore, it can be used to develop models that can predict the response of tundra ecosystems to future climate change, preparing us to deal with these variations. KEY TAKEAWAY ITEX keeps a record of phenological observations of plants in the Tundra region. This data is available through the tundra phenology database and can be used to study how plants cope with climate change in the tundra region.